Clara Foltz became the first woman lawyer in California in 1878 and one of the first in the country. Her story attracted nationwide publicity partly because she was a suffragist and a single mother of five children. Poor people accused of crime were often her clients, which led her to the idea of public defense. She launched the public defender movement in 1893 at the Chicago World's Fair and her advocacy led to the creation of a public defender system in each state. Foltz made other significant contributions to the criminal justice system. She believed that prosecutors should be ministers of public justice and was the first woman deputy district attorney in Los Angeles. Active in prison reform, Foltz was the first woman appointed to the Board of Charities and Corrections.

Susan Schwartzenberg is a visual artist who has exhibited her work internationally. Her recent projects include Cento: A Market St. Journal, which juxtaposed urban history with contemporary stories in an experimental guidebook, journal, and map. She co-authored Hollow City: The Siege of San Francisco and the Crisis of American Urbanism, and was co-designer of The Rosie the Riveter Memorial in Richmond. In 1998-99, she was a recipient of the Loeb Fellowship for Advanced Environmental Studies at Harvard University. Currently she is a senior artist at the Exploratorium in San Francisco.